A Sandbach mother and daughter duo are aiming to improve mental health with their Beautiful Minds initiative
A mother and daughter from Sandbach are aiming to improve the lives of young women with an initiative celebrating inner beauty.
Joanne Reid Jenkins and Naomi Baron of the Luminati Pro Makeup Studio (LPMS) have launched the Beautiful Minds initiative, which supports women in their mental health struggles caused by society and social media’s unrealistic expectations.
Jo, aged 48, explains that after a 20-year career in education, working with challenging youngsters she was keen to tap into her creative side so she retrained.
‘I didn’t just want to do make-up as it took away those 20 years I’d been helping people,’ she says. ‘So I volunteered with the Look Good Feel Better charity.’
Naomi, aged 25, says: ‘I did my friend’s make up for a Christmas party and she said “You have to do this as a job”. She actually made a Facebook page for me and as a result people booked in with me. I was so shocked.’
Jo found a studio and Naomi quit her personal training job to set up Luminati.
Speaking to clients they became concerned about the pressures on women to look a certain way and decided to set up Beautiful Minds: ‘With Instagram and social media, the pressures on girls to look a certain way are greater than ever,’ says Jo.
‘Young girls can spend three hours putting their make-up on for one photo on Instagram and then if they don’t get a certain amount of likes they’ll feel horrendous about themselves. I do a lot of lessons helping people do their make-up and to understand what brings out their natural features. It’s like giving somebody the tools to better themselves. It just changes their confidence levels. We want to use make-up to make those changes. We are make-up with a conscience.’
